Ray of hope

Smoke and mirrors or a blueprint for clean energy?

After decades of disappointment, with the consistent failure of our friends in the scientific community to produce a viable source of clean energy, a ray of light may be finally emerging. WAN’s Michael Hammond talks to Dr Gerry Wolff, the co-ordinator of the UK branch of the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC-UK)5.

Not only has a “new” technology surfaced but a joined-up plan has been put forward to power the whole of Europe. And it could work. This radical plan could provide the blueprint for a global solution to the provision of clean energy.

Solar power, whether using photovoltaic cells (PV) to generate electricity or direct heating through heat exchangers has been promising a breakthrough in economically viable power since I was at school, and believe me, that was a long time ago. So far it hasn’t delivered. Sure it’s got more efficient but the message now, as it always has been is, “it will be viable soon”.

This century, we have entered the age of wind power in earnest but, as already reported on WAN (20 December 2007), claims for wind farm efficiency have often been over hyped and many proposals produce far more PR than .........read full article here